The Competitive Enterprise Institute believes the proper role for government is to provide consumers with accurate, unbiased guidance that informs consumer choice. But, whether it is the substances we prefer, how we entertain ourselves, what dietary habits we maintain, or how we pursue personal health, consumers ought to have the right to make decisions for themselves.
Consumer Freedom Issue Areas
Featured Posts
News Release
Disney sues FCC over alleged ‘retaliatory campaign’ against ABC: CEI analysis
Today, Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit against President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in response to the…
News Release
FDA succeeds in approving new flu vaccine: CEI comment
The FDA has approved a flu vaccine made with mRNA technology, the same technology used for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, the company announced on…
Blog
Can Trump proposed rule pull the plug on bad appliance regulations?
Many Americans dislike federal home appliance regulations, perhaps nobody more so than the current White House occupant, who routinely rails against them at his…
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Blog
Tate Modern museum — where’s the “precautionary principle”?
Read an article about precaution and risk — in the Arts section of The New York Times today. Seems that the Tate…
Study
Politically Determined Entertainment Ratings and How to Avoid Them
Full Document Available in PDF When they…
Blog
Celebrate the Repeal of Prohibition, YouTube Style
Raise a glass to 21st Amendment!…
Blog
ENDA vs. Free Speech
Earlier, I discussed ENDA, a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would ban most employers from engaging in sexual orientation discrimination. While…
News Release
Smoking Prevention Bill May Backfire
Contact: Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252 Washington, DC, October 2, 2007—As the House Committee on Energy and Commerce prepares to hold a hearing tomorrow…
Letters
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Full Document Available in PDFs Dear Representative: We are writing to express our concerns…
Blog
The chickens come home to roost . . .
The corn-ethanol boom is continuing to spike up costs for food producers. Tyson, the beef and poultry titan, announced yesterday that its costs were up…
Blog
Alarming Waste
Today’s Washington Post includes a story on bisphenol A, a chemical that has been used to make flexible, clear plastic products–including baby bottles–since the…
Blog
Jenkins in the WSJ on the subprime shambles
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.’s piece in the Wall Street Journal today (“Payback,” subscription required) is a thoughtful and cogent assessment of some aspects of…
Blog
No such thing as a victimless ban
UK Telegraph columnist A.N. Wilson weighs in on a little-noticed pernicious effect of nanny statism. What do the following have in common:…
Blog
Chesapeake Bay Foundation — more corn acreage, more pollution
Growing more corn for ethanol in the mid-Atlantic region will mean increased pollution in rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill: A Trojan Horse?
PR Watch has an interesting story on the cynical baptist-bootlegger alliance behind the bill to give the FDA oversight over the tobacco industry, which…
Blog
DDT Deniers Deny Science
DDT-deniers—those who would rather let people die that allow DDT use to fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes—have been critiquing our blog posts on the topic…
Blog
The Uncreative Indestructibility of Modern Farming
Over at the Mises Institute’s website, Dan McLaughlin highlights a little-discussed pernicious effect of U.S. farm policy: the short-circuiting of the market’s creative destruction.
Blog
DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
Blog
Drug lag — precaution or pipelines?
According to a CNN Money article, a report released yesterday shows that the FDA has been cracking down on new drug approvals. Pharmaceutical companies…
Blog
Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
Blog
Getting the Word Out
Good news: Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights the recent study on DDT benefits in repelling mosquitoes and battling resistance issues. This study was highlighted…
Blog
Bad Information = Dangerous Consequences
Anti-DDT activists might read this with glee: Misinformation about DDT risks is undermining its use in Kampala, Uganda. A Ugandan news website reports that…
Blog
New Offense: Walking While Ripped
Nanny says eat healthily, exercise, and grow up big and strong. The Nanny State says don’t look too well-developed or we’ll arrest you. Seriously. It…
Blog
How Dare You Help Out!
The BBC reports that an old woman has “has been told she must stop tending a public flower bed unless she agrees to wear…
Blog
Another case of plastiphobia?
Typical of Reuters' science articles, there's a scare element in an article today titled “Panel worried about baby bottle chemical.” The article was referring…
Blog
No Excuse for Resistance to DDT
Anti-DDT activists in the environmental movement often suggest we should stop using this chemical to save people from malaria and other diseases because mosquitoes will…
Blog
America’s Black Market in Raw Milk
Criminals continue to peddle their illegal wares in America, as heroic law enforcement officers seek to stamp out a dangerous black market. No, the product…
Blog
More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
Blog
Credit for Codex decision?
In your post commenting on the rejection by Codex of the use of the Precautionary Principle, I’d like to point out that giving the…
Blog
UN Group Rejects Precautionary Principle
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint UN Food and Agricultural Organization-World Health Organization food safety standard-setting body, has apparently agreed to exclude the…
Blog
A Bridge Collapse Too Far
A lot of theories are being floated for what exactly caused the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. The real answer, of course,…
Blog
Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
Blog
Hatefull to the Nose, Harmefull to the Braine, Dangerous to the Lungs
If you’re looking for early health warnings about tobacco, Richard, you can go a lot further. The title of this post was the judgment of…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
Blog
Goofy’s Coffin Nails
When it comes to the politics of tobacco regulation, one of the most important dates is January 11, 1964, when then-Surgeon General Luther L. Terry…
Blog
Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
Blog
Nanny State In Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion…
Blog
Drug Price Ceilings Overturned
An appeals court ruling today struck down Washington, D.C.’s price ceilings for prescription drugs. In Biotechnology Industry Organization v. District of Columbia, the Court…
Blog
Whole Foods Merger Analysis
I may be going out on a limb here, but I predict, on the basis of what happened in court yesterday, that the Whole Foods…
Blog
How much will the Farm Bill cost the average family?
WashingtonWatch today listed the cost of the farm bill (H.R. 2419) just passed by the House last Friday. It seems like the average American…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Tramples Free Speech, Advertisers Say
Advertisers are objecting to the bill that would subject the tobacco industry to FDA regulation, saying that its restrictions on tobacco advertising would violate…
Blog
Farm Bill becomes a partisan pork party
Today, the House passed the 2007 Farm Bill — with a vote of 231 – 191, along partisan lines. [Corrected] The fly in the…
Blog
FDA Regulation: Harmful to Smokers’ Health?
Congress is on the verge of passing a bill that would subject tobacco products to FDA regulation. The FDA regulation bill would make it…
Blog
Sugar amendment offered during Farm Bill debate
During debate on the House floor on the Farm Bill this morning, sugar was on the agenda in the form of an amendment…
Blog
Farm Bill debate starts by focusing on tax increases on businesses
House floor debate on the 2007 Farm Bill — H.R. 2419 — began at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, with a contentious beginning focusing on a…
Blog
“He Only Saved a Billion People”
Newsweek has a story on Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, whose advances in biotechnology saved a billion people from starvation in…
Blog
Update on 2007 Farm Bill — Administration issues critique — and warning
On the eve of House consideration of the 2007 Farm Bill, the Bush Administration has just sent a statement from the Office of Management…
Blog
Farm bill scheduled for House tomorrow — Bush will veto, says Ag Secretary
Today Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns said that the President may veto the 2007 Farm Bill, scheduled for full House consideration tomorrow, because it…
Blog
Nonagenarians in the news
Nonagenarians — people in their nineties — are making news this month. Last week Norman Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal for his lifetime…
Blog
More on subsidies for dead farmers — in the GAO’s words
Here’s a copy of the Government Accountability Office’s report on large farm subsidy payments made to dead farmers, which was released today at a…
Blog
The downside of bipartisanship — 2007 Farm Bill
At an hour-and-a-half press conference this morning, House Agriculture Committee members, perhaps sensitive to revelations that dead farmers have been receiving huge farm subsidies,…
Blog
Hands off VOIP
Today's New York Times carries a story about the sudden failure and shutdown of my former home telephone company, SunRocket. Although it obviously…
Blog
Anti-AIDS Spending Backfires
A U.N. effort to reduce the spread of AIDS to children by encouraging HIV-positive mothers to use formula rather than breast feeding has backfired…
Blog
Offset Your Lunch?
The next time you grab a burger for lunch, you’re part of the global warming problem. That, at least, is the upshot of a…
Blog
FDA Authority: Less Is More
Our good friend (and adjunct fellow) Henry Miller of the Hoover Institute responds in the pages of Regulation to charges that the FDA…
Blog
Just Don’t Drink Water?
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) doesn’t want you to drink bottled water because it’s a waste of resources. Tap water is just as good they…
Blog
Farm bill — Ag Committee gives strong support to energy title
Today at the Agriculture Committee debate on the 2007 Farm Bill (see the live streaming video here), a significant portion of the debate focused…
Blog
A Man for All Seasons, Norman Borlaug
Yesterday Norman Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian award. This humble and unpretentious microbiologist and plant breeder is credited with saving over…
Blog
Worthy Pleasure Seekers of the World Unite
Today the Senate Finance Committee is considering the “Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act of 2007,” which, according to James Thorner of…
Blog
How sweet it is — for sugar producers
As the House Agriculture Committee begins debate on the 2007 Farm Bill today, eight public interest groups sent a letter to committee members…
Blog
Government Wisdom
The House Agriculture Committee’s homepage features a message from the chairman that includes this line: Every American who eats should recognize the importance of…
Blog
Syndicated Vindication
Another CEI milestone – we’ve made it into the popular syndicated newspaper column The Straight Dope (the column has published since 1973 under the…
News Release
XM-Sirius Merger Should Go Forward
Washington, D.C., July 9, 2007—The proposed merger of satellite radio companies XM and Sirius should be cleared by the Federal Communications Commission, according to…
Comment
Comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in the matter of XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite Ra
Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute Contents…
Blog
I Think I Hear Lee Greenwood in the Background
In the spirit of Independence Day Eve, we should all read Peter Hartlaub’s column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, and admire its praise of…
Blog
Khosting on Fumes
Our old friend Vinod Khosla is back in the news, this time with something to show for his efforts: the world’s first commercial-scale…
Blog
Tune into the Space Angels Network
Kerry Howley is covering the latest developments in private exploration in space exploration today over at Hit & Run. Also, the July/August ’07 issue…
Blog
The Hidden Costs of CAFE standards
Charles Krauthammer has an interesting column today on the perils and hidden costs of higher CAFE standards, which would order automakers to increase the…
Blog
Grindhouse Grinds Down Crime
It’s received wisdom that violent movies encourage violence and that if only we were like our enlightened European cousins and restricted violence in movie theaters,…
Blog
Every Day is Christmas When You’re an Ethanol Producer
Our good friend Tim Carney has an excellent op-ed today in the Examiner on who’s getting screwed and who’s getting rich off of the energy…
Blog
A Plea for the Victims of Malaria
Today on CEI’s Rachelwaswrong.org blog, Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute (New Delhi, India) makes a plea for greater awareness about malaria’s victims…
Blog
Radio Frequency Your Way to Good Health
AFP reports on a new study by the American Medical Association recommending the implantation of RFID tags to carry medical information in case of…
Blog
Shining a Spotlight on Anti-DDT Activists
A story in today’s Mail and Guardian, an online African newspaper, highlights First Lady Laura Bush’s trip to Africa, where she is “shining a…
Blog
Tires from China
Today’s news contains word that The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is calling for the recall of 450,000 Chinese tires that apparently come apart…
Blog
A couple of bucks stop here
A new survey from the strange combination of Resources for the Future, New Scientist, and Stanford University has some interesting findings not just on…
Blog
Cell Phones and Driving
Interesting new study from James E. Prieger of Pepperdine University and Bob Hahn at the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, looking at the…
Blog
Reasonable Energy Policy Blown Away in House
The Industrial Wind Action Group just sent along a press release on the emerging monster of a House energy bill and a recent change…
Blog
Social Workers Seize Children to Receive Adoption Bonuses
In England, as in the United States, local governments receive cash incentives from the national government for adopting out children. In England, this has led…
Blog
On Thoroughbreds
Iain, Interesting points. I’m no expert on horse racing but my understanding is that the the races in the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred…
Blog
Mea Culpa (Sorta) on Credit Scoring
No sooner did I post my thoughts about the Supreme Court decision on credit scoring than I got an e-mail from an American Insurance…
Blog
Green State of Denial
John Tierney’s excellent article on Rachel Carson’s legacy published in yesterday’s New York Times is under attack on the comments section of Tierney’s blog. The responses…
Blog
A Two-Pronged Triumph for Science
Iain – Thanks for noting the triumph of unreason in the EU, where they’re banning barometers because of the presence of that ole…
Blog
Improvement of the Breed?
Of course, Greg, it’s worth noting that the organizations you refer to appear to be largely falling down in their efforts to improve their…
Blog
Can You Clone that Thoroughbred?
USA Today has an interesting article this morning about the position of various purebred animal promotion associations (think American Kennel Club) on animal…
Blog
Conservatarian Thoughts on the FCC
Our friend (and former Open Market editor) Peter Suderman makes an excellent free market point at The Corner today about broadcast obscenity and…
Blog
NYT on Carson
Today, columnist John Tierney takes on the legacy of Rachel Carson in the New York Times Science section, offering a critique of Carson’s alarmism and…
Blog
Greens Attack Rather than Debate
Environmental activists from Environmental Defense, the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), and the Silent Spring Institute refuse to debate me (and probably anyone…
Blog
Rachel wrong on NRO and CBS
Iain’s National Review Online piece on Rachel Carson’s other legacy — alarmism as a political tactic — was also picked up by CBS…
Blog
At the Mercy of Regulators
After a seven-year policy battle, Europe’s new chemical law takes effect today. The law is known as REACH—the acronym for the bureaucratic name Registration, Evaluation…
Blog
Tensions within the FDA — Type I, Type II debate
An internecine struggle apparently exists within the FDA, according to an article in the New York Times. Those tensions between drug approval officials and…
Blog
Partial Nudity Delays Halo 2 for Vista
Halo 2 for Vista was found to have a hidden part of the code containing a character which moons the player. Much like GTA‘s hidden…
Blog
Department of Pre-Regulation
One of the highlights of our big annual dinner last week was our faux public service announcement from a future where nanny-state regulators have…
Blog
Coburn’s House friends also said no to Rachel
Angela, nice post and op-ed. But I’ve got some good news for you. Coburn isn’t all alone in his crusade to stop Congress…
Blog
Like Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, Rachel Carson is still wrong
CEI’s Angela Logomasini gives kudos to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Olka.) for his stand against honoring the 100th birthday of environmentalist icon Rachel Carson. Here’s…
Blog
Today is Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday
And to observe the occasion, CEI's Jeremy Lott and Erin Wildermuth provide a reality check on her legacy in today's Baltimore Sun: In 1948,…
Blog
Millions Dead
Millions dead and that’s still not enough for environmental activists to change their colors. Last September, Dr. Arata Kochi, Director of the World Health Organization’s…
Blog
Coburn Right — Rachel Wrong
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) stands largely alone in efforts to stop congressional initiatives to honor the environmental movement’s icon the late Rachel Carson, whose…
Blog
“Scent profiling” in Germany
Germany is collecting “scent samples” of agitators in the runup to the G8 summit to be held in Heiligendamm. Their security people are worried…
Blog
Long Live Plastics
The London Museum is planning a special exhibit to mark the centennial of a material that was long denigrated–plastics. It will cover the massive importance…
Blog
And a good life it’s been
Featured today in Fark.com under the heading of “Hero” is a story to give Michael Jacobson nightmares, headlined “Bad habits key to…
Blog
Rachel Was Wrong
Today we launch our campaign urging people to rethink the legacy of environmentalist icon Rachel Carson, with the site www.RachelWasWrong.com. Today she’s mostly remembered…
Blog
A Colossal Tragedy
A story on today’s front page of the Washington Post highlights the life of Rachel Carson. While largely praising Carson, the author does note…
